The brain manages everything for man that he accomplishes. It brings messages from the Creator, which are sometimes called intuition, sometimes inspiration, and by various other names. Emerson calls these messages the "Over-Soul." My own appreciation of the attribute that distinguishes the Spiritual Man from the animal man is better satisfied by the name "Spiritual Cerebration," which I have defined in my book "Happiness" as: "Intelligence not derived from experience, principally obtained during sleep, and, seemingly supernaturally clear to consciousness on awaking in the natural manner."
The brain also directs all action, and, with encouragement, will take up the messages from the Creator and analyse, arrange, and develop them into useful accomplishments, and then file them away in the archives of the memory as additions to the equipment which is necessary to greatness in the pursuit of usefulness.
Dr. Dewey gives the bill of fare of the brain in seeking its own nourishment, and also describes the work it performs in transforming the fuel we supply it with into the tissues on which it feeds.
This is undoubtedly a very important discovery and locates the source of strength and teaches how to conserve it.
I will not give the technical bill of fare of the brain, for you would not remember it better than I do, but it is all composed of tissues of the body, fat predominating to the quantity of ninety-seven per cent, but the important announcement is that neither the brain itself nor any of the nervous centres diminish during consumption of tissue, neither do they lose any of their power, even in cases of what is called starvation, up to the point of death, when all of the fatty and muscular tissues of the body are wasted away, leaving the brain and nerve centres to flicker and go out, as a candle does, brighter than usual with the parting flash of their brilliancy.
Dr. Dewey gives President Garfield as an illustrious example of proof of the accuracy of his deduction. The martyr President lived eighty days without the addition of an ounce of nutriment to his life, carried the usual clearness of mind to the last moment, and passed on only when the last muscular tissue had been consumed by the brain.